GERONIMO: AN AMERICAN LEGEND
A film review by Keith Meng-Wei Loh
Copyright 1993 Keith Meng-Wei Loh
GERONIMO directed by Walter Hill / story by John Milius / starring Jason Patric, Marc Damon, Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall and Wes Studi as Geronimo / music by Ry Cooder
Geronimo, the real story, is one of the great stories of the frontier.
The Apache Indians of the southwest had fought off Spanish conquistadors and the Mexican army before the U.S. cavalry attempted to bring them into the system of remote and barren reserves that had been the fate of all the plains Indians.
An Apache war chief, Geronimo, and a small band of warriors broke out of a concentration camp. He fought a guerrilla campaign against hundreds of United States cavalry and held out for months by raiding from the mountains which had been the Apache range until the white men came. While the cavalry followed rumours and false trails from canyon to mesa, newspapers in the east quickly made the defiant Apache a folk legend, demonizing him and at the same time making him a symbol of the vanishing frontier.
It was only with the help of other Apache scouts that the cavalry at last cornered Geronimo and negotiated his surrender. Geronimo, who had left the army concentration camps twice before, returned to the fences and lived until he was old by learning to sign his name in English and selling his autographs at 'wild west' shows. Suffering from tuberculosis and pneumonia, Geronimo died pathetically on a winter night, alone, after falling from his horse. He had had a vision that he would die astride a horse.
There is so much about Geronimo that is appealing as a story. Geronimo the Man was a brilliant personal leader, charismatic and proud, and immensely spiritual--a hero in the real sense. The plight of the Apache, like the story of Wounded Knee, was for those who stayed in the reserves, one of suffering and inhumanity. As Geronimo's exploits became daily fare in the newspapers, the American government's Indian policy became the subject of political machinations that extended even to the President. The hunt for Geronimo, himself, of course, is the classic David vs. Goliath story become life.
GERONIMO: AN AMERICAN LEGEND is a disappointment on two levels. One, that with such inspiring source material a movie can be so superficial. Two, that the crew of director Walter Hill and writer John Milius could come up with a movie so boring.
Both John Milius and Walter Hill have built up an impressive list of action films, leading one to expect that GERONIMO might be at least exciting, if receiving the standard Hollywood embellishment. Milius, whose accomplishments include scripting APOCALYPSE NOW and directing CONAN THE BARBARIAN, has strung together a surprisingly slow plot littered with speechifying and shallow characterization. Hill, best known for the "48 Hour" films but also noted for a decent film of the Jesse James gang, THE LONG RIDERS, never quite connects the audience with what is gritty, human story.
Like many movies before it, GERONIMO: AN AMERICAN LEGEND adopts the cliched device that one cannot tell a story about Indians (or a different culture for that matter) without seeing it through the lens of a white man. The character of the young cavalry officer Lt. Davis, played by fresh-faced Marc Damon, is provided to give us idiots a history lesson and moral commentary. What insight he gives us through an ungainly voice-over narrative is debatable, however, because he is inexplicably absent for many key events that might elude those in the audience who know little about Geronimo. His narrative seems necessary only to tie together scenes that are strung along in a very loose fashion.
The greatest failing in GERONIMO is that we are never really given a good idea of what motivates Geronimo, nor do we spend much time with the character. GERONIMO the movie is more about the people who try to catch him than the man himself. Wes Studi, in a much larger role than his Magua in THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, is still not much more than supporting cast. His lines, whether delivered by aid of subtitles or in the noble kind of English all movie Indians seem to speak, consist mostly of wise sayings like: "You white-eyes lie" or "your heart is strong".
We never travel deep into the Apache culture save for MTV type filming of ghost dances, and a vague feeling that the Apache are very religious and are meant to be free. The brutality of the reserves first forced upon the Apache are not shown, neither do we really experience their lives at all. There are several other Indian characters who are anonymously portrayed.
This is not to say that the dialogue of the white men is much better. Jason Patric (who looks more like Dennis Miller's lost twin with each movie) is the only cavalry scout who has an affinity for the Apache. He is a man of clear sympathies, who is strangely unemotional and is stoically played. Gene Hackman provides a competent performance as the general first sent to keep the Apache under control. If you've seen Robert Duvall in LONESOME DOVE you need not see him here, though his performance as a bigoted scout (the Tom Horn character?) is the most natural.
GERONIMO is filmed in the same golden shine seen in DANCES WITH WOLVES, with pretty vistas abounding but without a feeling for life either in the saddle or on station. Milius has written a film akin in style to FAREWELL TO THE KING in which everyone and everything is imbued with meaning, but where nothing seems real.
The music by Ry Cooder shows touches of the sensitivity that Cooder displays with his own music, but a bombastic orchestral score is most evident, intending perhaps to impress the audience with the majesty of movie. It comes off as self-important.
Even those seeking action will be disappointed. There are actually few scenes of battle between the Apache and the cavalry. And the one gunfight that is portrayed in any depth involves a superfluous subplot in Mexico that does not involve the Apache at all.
The best thing that can be said is that Geronimo is such a good story that it is bound to be made again, hopefully with more depth.
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